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The Case For
Canibus Essay, Research Paper

The Case for
Cannabis

Solomon Hafer
11/28/99

Mrs. Pappas
English 10 D

Legalization of
marijuana offers both benefits, and disadvantages. The medical
benefits of marijuana have been researched and proven to aid patients
with glaucoma and some forms of cancer. Other benefits include: fewer
people in prison and fewer social problems for the users because they
get help instead of jail time. The big question remains: all out
legalization or legalization for medical use, or decriminalization.
Whatever the outcome, marijuana use needs to be based on its own
pharmacology and its own faults and not on the problems with other
drugs.

The history of
drug use in the United States is surprising. A survey in Iowa in the
1880s found that 3,000 grocery stores sold opiates without a
prescription.(Legalization: A Debate, Elliot Marshall) Around the
turn of the century, the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) simply
required patent medicines to list ingredients on the label. In 1914,
Congress wished to improve relations with China, and so passed
narcotics control measures requiring the monitoring of certain drug
sales. Various acts were passed over the next several decades that
gave the federal government more and more control over importation
and distribution of narcotics.

In 1971, in part
as a response to the tumult of the 1960s, President Richard Nixon
launched a comprehensive ?War on Drugs?. Two years later, Nixon
declared that we had won the war on drugs. Apparently he was wrong,
for in the United States, drug law enforcement costs have risen to
astronomical proportions. Increasing debate over the failure of the
?Drug War? as well as questions of personal freedom and privacy
rights have led to calls among many citizens of the United States for
legalization of marijuana as well as other drugs such as cocaine and
heroin.

The medicinal
uses of marijuana have been studied and documented in the treatment
of the side effects of chemotherapy for cancer and treatment of the
symptoms of glaucoma. Glaucoma is a progressive eye disease that
causes pressure buildup inside the eye and eventually leads to
blindness. Marijuana decreases the pressure on the eyes, decreases
pain, and helps to stabilize the condition. Smoking marijuana
relieves the pain for about five hours; it must be smoked at regular
intervals to sustain the effect. Marijuana is also used to treat
cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. In chemotherapy, doctors use
small doses of potentially lethal medications to selectively kill
cancer cells. Understandably, chemotherapy causes the patient to feel
nausea, loss of appetite and pain. Marijuana used as a treatment for
the side effects of chemotherapy restores appetite, eliminates nausea
and decreases the pain. (Legalization: A Debate p.67-71)

Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC)–an intoxicant–is the main active psychotropic ingredient in
marijuana. THC has been produced synthetically for use in place of
marijuana for treatment of cancer and glaucoma. THC is made into
pills and eyedrops for glaucoma. Both have had little or no effect on
the patients? symptoms. The purpose was to get pain relief without
the intoxicating effects of marijuana smoke. Inhaled marijuana smoke
has also been shown more effective than dronabinol, the synthetic THC
form, in such conditions as: epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, paraplegia
and quadriplegia, migraine, premenstrual syndrome, menstrual cramps,
labor pains, depression and other mood
disorders.(http://www.whitman.edu/offices_departments/biology/stuproj/young/why.html)

Marijuana is
classed as a Schedule 1 drug. Schedule 1 drugs are said to have a
high potential for abuse, high addiction potential, and no medical
potential. Cocaine and opiates have Schedule 2 status even though
they have much more serious effects than marijuana. (Legalization: A
Debate p.69)

The number of
people physically dependent on marijuana is less than 15% of regular
users are actually addicted. Most of the people are recreational
users, using marijuana less than once a day to relax. Dependency
rates for regular users of alcohol and cigarettes are much
higher.(Legalization: A Debate p. 81)

In terms of
potency, marijuana is a relatively mild drug. No one is known to have
died from a marijuana overdose. People have died because of using
marijuana with additives like angel dust (PCP), because the angel
dust, not the marijuana is lethal. Many legal substances, if abused,
can result in death such as: salt, tobacco, aspirin, Tylenol, and
caffeine. Alcohol is legal, is much more widely misused, and kills
far more people than marijuana.(DATA: 100,000-200,000/yr compared to
6,000-30,000/yr for all illicit drugs). Tobacco also is misused and
results in 320,000-500,000/yr deaths per year. Tobacco and alcohol
are some of the most addictive legal substances that are misused and
they result in far more deaths than all illegal drugs
combined.(Data:420,000-700,000/yr for alcohol and tobacco combined,
compared to 6,000-30,000/yr for all illicit drugs)

In the United
States, some 200 million people over the age of twelve commonly use
drugs, to wit:

caffeine 178
million or 89%

alcohol 106
million or 53%

tobacco 57
million or 28%

marijuana 12
million or 6%

cocaine 3
million or 1.5%

heroin 2 million
or 1%

US Drug deaths
(per year)

tobacco
320,000-500,000

alcohol
100,000-200,000

illicit drugs
6,000-30,000

(Friends Journal
Feb. 1996)

Over 1.1 million
people each year are arrested for drug crimes. Drug offenders include
more than 60 percent of the prison population. The US Declaration of
Independence states that every citizen has the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Some argue their
constitutional right to smoke marijuana. We also have a
constitutional right to privacy. (Amendment # 2) ?There is a strong
case to be made against legislating the private behavior of adults,
as long as that behavior does not in turn violate the rights of
others.? (Marshall, 79) To use the law to say people cannot use
marijuana is an invasion of privacy, unless there is proof of harm to
others. On average 30-50 thousand dollars a year are spent to keep
one person in prison. More than 300 thousand people are held in US
prisons. This adds up to a whopping total of twelve billion dollars a
year spent on keeping drug offenders in prison. In 1995 the United
States Government spent 13.3 billion dollars on drug enforcement. In
addition to the federal government, local and state governments spent
an additional 15.9 billion dollars on enforcement as well. What this
means for all the taxpayers is higher taxes. If marijuana were
legalized, far fewer prisoners would go to jail for drugs. Legal
marijuana also would reduce drug enforcement expenses, as well as
give us all tremendous tax breaks. The government could use the
excess money for more useful things such as education on drug use and
abuse.

The war against
drugs is immoral in several ways. The cost to our society in terms of
people imprisoned with no hope of gainful employment, interaction
with their families and friends or the greater good of society is
staggering. Other casualties to society include deaths in turf
fights, those killed in cross fire, robberies, and children given
free drugs to addict them so they can be used as runners and dealers.
Taxes used for the War on Drugs are being wasted on ineffective
programs rather than improved education, housing, and medical care.
Twenty five percent of children in the United States live in poverty,
a situation that contributes to increased drug use and increased drug
dealer profits.

Dealing drugs is
lucrative only because it is illegal. Making drugs illegal leads to
immense profit and the corruption of political officials, police, and
judges. In addition Third world economies such as Bolivia, Colombia,
and Peru depend on the drug trade to prevent financial collapse. For
instance cocaine brings 600 million dollars per year to Bolivia?s
economy, an amount equal to the country?s gross legal export income.
When drug legalization occurs the price of drugs will plummet
immediately and world drug empires will collapse. This would also
cause an immediate decrease in all violent crime as occurred at the
end of Prohibition in 1933.

Legalization
would involve quality control through the Food and Drug
Administration to guarantee purity and safety and to recommend safe
dosages for a given condition. The government could restrict or
prohibit advertising as well as provide educational programs,
rehabilitation and research. Taxes could be collected to pay for
these programs, rather than prison and police enforcement. Farmers in
third world countries could grow and sell crops without being
controlled by drug lords, who would find their profits greatly
diminished.

This century
opened with legal drugs. There have been many experiments with the
control of drugs and alcohol use. The government spends billions and
imprisons millions of people. But the quality of life for the poor
has not improved; if anything it has worsened. Legalization would
remove the profit motive and allow the government to tax, monitor,
and safeguard drug use. Until we address the economic factors that
contribute to drug use, drug addiction will continue. We as a nation
are the addicts: addicted to the use of force; arming a resistance to
combat the use of drugs will fail because it reflects our own belief
that we can get anything we want if we spend enough resources and use
enough force.

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